Dominic Winter

It may seem hard to credit nowadays, but photographs of fairies at the bottom of the Cottingley (Yorkshire) garden of two young girls, produced in 1917 as a practical joke, were taken to be genuine by many people – most famously, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Founder remembered as anniversary sale sheds light on evolution of the Narnia Chronicles

Real rarities and record breakers are among items that feature in this first of a couple of reviews of more literary lots from the wealth of summer sales. Here the focus is principally on works of the last 200 years or so – and includes such diverse characters as Hugh the Heron and the Invisible Man.

Sold for £2500 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of July 25 was an enormous archive of work produced in the 1950s and ‘60s by Leslie Starke (1905-74), a cartoonist once very popular in both the UK and US.

“I would say in the short term it hasn’t put buyers off but I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know what the future will hold.” Auctioneer Henry Meadows’ take on the forthcoming ivory ban will be shared by many a regional auctioneer in the wake of summer sales.

An inscription reading “For Mrs Oliver, from Beatrix Potter – with kind regards & best wishes for Christmas 1901” was a welcome bonus on a copy of the first, privately printed edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Old hangars and even older tents provided two of the more successful categories in a recent three-day, 1600-lot sales week in South Cerney.

A trio of unsigned First World War prints by CRW Nevinson (1889-1946) sold for multi-estimate sums in a two-day sale at Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) in Cirencester.

A volume containing Richard Hooker’s sixth and eighth books dealing with The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Policy… is a 1651 re-issue of an edition first published three years earlier. The principal attraction, however, was the armorial binding.

First such pocket atlas published in England leads a look at highly diverse auction selection

According to Chris Albury at Cirencester auctioneer Dominic Winter, an “an absolutely A1 example” of Roger Fenton’s (1819-69) famous photo The Valley of the Shadow of Death would make “£50,000-plus at auction, easy peasy”.

Cartographic rarities showed the way to strong results at the Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) saleroom.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships

Music played its part in the first Dominic Winter sale of the year, with books, scores and other autograph material from another but differently sourced Elgar collection to others offered before by the saleroom.

Carroll rubbed shoulders with Wilde, Rackham, Tolkien and many other children’s works in recent auctions.